For a president to say that the election day that has just been held in his country has been "a good day for democracy" is not usually news at all. This time yes. Because a much more favorable outcome for Donald and his ilk than Tuesday's midterm elections have brought Americans would have spelled disaster for their democracy and his future.
In the absence of knowing the most substantial data of the midterms and without it being entirely clear which party will control each of the two Houses of Congress, the evidence of a much lower-than-expected Republican advance encouraged Joe Biden this Wednesday to moderately reaffirm himself in the optimism that he had proclaimed before the opening of the polling stations.
The president highlighted two facts that Democrats can already take for granted: “We have lost fewer seats in the House of Representatives than in the first midterms of any other Democratic president in the last 40 years,” he proclaimed. And he added: "We have the best results for Democratic candidates for state governor since 1986."
Biden of course highlighted the breach of the predictions of a "tide" of Republican votes; a "red tide", as it is said here in allusion to the color of the Republican Party.
But the president simultaneously acknowledged voters' "frustration" with inflation, rising crime and other problems. A malaise translated into a probable defeat that, however slight, could take control of the House of Representatives and even the Senate from the Democrats, although the latter seems more difficult for the Republicans. "I got it," he said.
